


Unworthy Pendulum

by toniwilder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Pre-Thor (2011), Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28152477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toniwilder/pseuds/toniwilder
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple forage for herbs. A normal quest from father to test their eye. Then Thor had to go hear about the monster plaguing the nearby village. The one that coiled up inside the cave, ready to snap up any passerby.Loki and Thor are caught in a cave collapse.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	Unworthy Pendulum

It was supposed to be a simple forage for herbs. A normal quest from father to test their eye. Then Thor had to go hear about the monster plaguing the nearby village. The one that coiled up inside the cave, ready to snap up any passerby.

Loki coughed and spit on the stone where his elbow pressed uncomfortably into the cracked rock and noted the spit tasted metallic. His heart wrenched in his chest.

Loki hung from his wrist in the innards of the collapsed cave. The tendons of muscle fiber in his arm frayed under the weight of his body and the bulk of Thor who still hung to his foot. His thick fingers dug into the gauntlets over his shin.

“Loki!” Thor bellowed from below. “Light a spell for me. I can’t see the ground below.”

Loki gritted back a scream when Thor’s grip tightened.

“Loki! The light!”

Loki’s jaw clenched, the muscle under his ear so tight with pain and rage he could feel it morphing threadbare at the edges.

Never mind his hand was unusable, stuck in the crevice where the stone had collapsed around the digits or his arm was hanging, nearly pulled out of its socket at this point. Loki grabbed the stone with his free hand, noted the quick burn of agony when those fingers stung with the unmistakable singe of brokenness as well. He sent the spell below quickly, and Thor audibly growled when the light flickered out as fast as it appeared.

“Again!”

Loki shook his head. _Bastard._ His breath left his lungs in a hiss.

“I-I can’t. I’m stuck,” he said in the place of insult.

Silence from Thor then. His grip changed to a lightened load before the other hand dug into his shin. He adjusted to peer up at Loki.

“Which part?” Then, with less tact, “Free yourself and fall.”

Bone pulled from socket then, forearm from elbow joint, fingers fracturing under the pressure, and Loki shrieked.

“Let go let go let _go_ of me, you behemoth!”

Thor, for all his trouble, let go lightning quick at the order. In the fog of the pain, Loki could vaguely note the sound of Thor hitting something solid not long or far from when he dropped. Thor grunted, but didn’t sound too pained from the fall. That was good, they weren’t too far from ground then. Loki could get loose and settle somewhere to recover his bearings. He only needed to get free.

“Loki,” Thor’s voice had been colored with something decidedly less cruel than before. “Where are you stuck?”

“My hand… M-my hand is crushed in the rock.”

“That’s no good,” Thor hummed, so unbothered Loki almost laughed.

Instead, he shook his head and shivered against the stone. His other hand crumpled at the use of his finger strength and Loki went hanging again, gasping with something like sobs trying to make their way out of his chest.

It wasn’t until the pain pulled a decidedly embarrassing whine out Loki’s chest, with words that sounded an awful lot like adolescent curses that Thor said, “It’ll be alright, brother. I’ll get you down.”

“Gently!” Loki snapped, overcome with the sudden image of Thor sending Mjolnir up to the rock and collapsing what hadn’t fallen onto them and crushing them completely. Then, more breath than venom, “Do it gently or do not bother to help at all.”

“I’m always gentle.” Thor sounded offended as he set a spark to his lantern and attached it to his belt. “Hold still. I’m coming.”

As Thor climbed up the side of the cavern, feet slipping as carefully as Thor could manage without sending another avalanche upon them, Loki did inventory of his wounds

The hand that hadn’t been swallowed up had fractures in each finger. His shoulder was wounded, if not fractured as well. The muscles of his other arm were strained and still straining. His chest had been slammed with rocks on the way down, likely a few broken bones there as well. There was difficulty taking note of his legs as they dangled above the opening, but Loki settled with the knowledge he could move his toes within the steel head of his boots and hoped that would be enough. The hand in the stone, swallowed from the mid forearm up to his fingers, was crushed—possibly beyond repair.

His dominant hand, the vehicle of his seidr. Crushed.

“Loki, calm down and breathe,” Thor shushed, suddenly closer than Loki remembered him being. Loki shut his eyes tight and took a heaving, rasping breath that seemed good. Thor congratulated him when he took it and then another. When Thor said, “Good,” Loki’s lungs emptied of air with a shake.

“No no, it’s alright.” Thor’s hand reached out underneath Loki’s left side. “Let go with the other arm.”

“I can’t,” Loki whimpered. “The weight will drop. My arm will break off.”

“Trust me.”

Trust him? Trust _Thor?_

Loki shuddered.

“You want to hang here forever? I’ve got places to be,” Thor jostled Loki at the waist.

Rage at audacity, envious of physicality, shame of being caught. It turned Loki red.

He let go.

Thor swung his fist upwards and punched knuckle into stone around Loki’s captured hand. Loki cried wordlessly as the rocks shattered around his fingers and he dropped like the stone he’d been caught under until Thor fastened his grip tighter and pulled him to the side of the wall. Loki kept his forehead pressed to the wall, breathing deep while Thor watched the stone fall down the barren cavern. After the sound of collapse had ended for more than a few moments, Thor adjusted Loki again and began to climb down the cave wall.

“It’s alright,” Thor hummed as he descended. “I’ve got you.”

Clumsy large hands gripped tight around Loki—entirely too tight and pressing heavy weight into the muscle of his pulled side. Bruised side. Loki cursed and Thor laughed.

“Silver tongue easily minced by a few broken bones?”

As much as he wanted to shoot back something witty and cruel, Loki decided his energy was better sent towards his hand. The hand that ached with the surge of magic, but still felt all the same. Loki shrieked.

“Damn it, Loki!” Thor curled into the stone and shoved the smaller into the rockface with him. “This cavern echoes,” he hissed, “I could do without your weeping until we’re out.”

“My hand—” Loki then corrected, “My arm.”

“I _know_ ,” Thor snapped. “I am working on it, but I’m no healer. I won’t be able to protect us if I’m near deaf from your wailing.”

Thor was right. Thor was the only able-bodied fighter now of the two, in a cavern with a monster they had yet to destroy. Loki’s shrieks would only mark them as a prey to be cornered. Thor continued down into the cavern and Loki, forcing back the pain and embarrassment, shook.

“It’s alright,” Thor lamely supplied, though he didn’t sound particularly invested in the comfort. “We’ll go back home and the healers will see to your arm.”

Like a child. Loki gritted his teeth and spared a glance down to his arm.

Lifeless, hanging, and so red except in the areas the muscle had turned purple from the bruising. The air chilled.

“Hey.” Thor jostled him. “A little woozy from a few battle scars?”

When they reached the cavern floor, Loki stumbled to the ground without Thor’s support and struggled to claw off the heavy leather of his sleeves.

“What are you doing?”

“I-I need to asse-ess.”

The damage would be extensive, but there were parts Loki might be able to heal alone without putting his youth and arrogance on display for the healers and mother and.

And father.

Thor sighed and knelt beside him. “Alright,” he humored.

His normally clumsier fingers made easier work where Loki’s yellowed and broken joints could not. The wristlets and sleeves peeled back and Thor’s breath exhaled swiftly where Loki’s stopped.

The arm that had been caught, the one he couldn’t move, shined bright with visible bone. The blood seeped out and Loki reached for it with his other palm only to find he couldn’t move. When he keeled forward, Thor caught him, and now he cursed to an audience of no one. His head jostled Loki’s shoulder as he looked back and forth for some sign of exit and Loki only pressed close into the shoulder and suffocated with the sight of his crushed arm and thought,

Worthless.

Defenseless.

Witchling.

“Breathe,” Thor grumbled.

He lifted Loki up then and Loki was able to follow with only minor issue.

“So, your legs do work. Good. That’s good, brother.”

Loki’s steps slurred after Thor as they walked the cave. How much of the heavy weight in his head was fear and how much was injury, Loki couldn’t say. He could only vouch for the occasional check in from Thor as his brother looked over his shoulder and scowled, or maybe he winced. Loki could not say.

“Father won’t like this,” Loki said.

“I don’t much care for what father likes right now,” Thor countered. “Foraging is woman’s work.”

“I—” Loki laughed. “I rather like it.”

“Yes, well,” Thor practically grumbled the words out like a petulant child, “You’re odd.”

“Things were calm until—” Loki toppled forward into Thor’s side. Thor stopped to lift him up further. “Until you—”

“Yes, until I wanted to find the monster,” Thor snapped. “I was there, brother.”

“Oh?” Loki laughed again.

“Stop that.” Thor’s impatience stopped them again and Thor suddenly hoisted Loki up onto his back like they had when they were too young to know how to resent one another. “You sound delirious when you laugh like that.”

“Ah,” Loki hummed. “Perhaps you’ve driven me mad finally?”

It was Thor’s turn to laugh. “You have far more life in you before I do that. At least a little grey in your temple.” Thor looked over his shoulder. “Maybe a beard?”

When Loki laughed, it felt delirious with the way Thor’s face fell and his shoulder went red with a sudden splotch of blood. Was that his blood?

Thor stopped suddenly and lowered Loki carefully onto the ground.

“Let me see,” he ordered, hands already on the crest of Loki’s chest guard.

When Thor peeled back the layers of leather of metal, the smell of iron filled the air.

“Oh dear,” Loki breathed. “That’s no good.”

“Shut up, Loki,” Thor snapped.

The leather chest piece fell to the side easily and Thor pressed both hands against Loki’s chest before pulling away quickly. Loki gaped, feeling a bit like a fish out of water as he struggled for breath, before Thor made quick work to wrap his chest with bandages from his knapsack.

“They don’t look well,” Thor admitted, “But they don’t look as ghast as your arms.”

“Oh, joy.”

Loki let his head fall back, head light as air as the stench of blood clouded his nostrils.

“What constitutes--- Ahah… Well?”

“No puncture.” Thor lifted Loki again, swifter this time.

The standards were so low? Loki shut his eyes and coughed again.

“Breathe easy,” Thor said, “You’ll just make this worse.”

Loki forced the breaths through his nose and out through his mouth, ignoring the way his lungs rattled with each inhale. Thor’s pace quickened.

Then faded.

Then nothing.

_“Heimdall!”_

**Author's Note:**

> I'll likely add a second chapter to this at some point but I wanted to get this first bit out of my head since I've had it laying around since october first. The prompt was "suspension".


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